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Friday, September 14, 2012

Is the Japanese Government Ready to Take an Economic Hit for the Senkaku Islands?

The Chinese authorities are doing two
things: scuttling official contacts and public events and sending official vessels,
six of them, simultaneously, into the territorial waters of what Google Maps
judiciously calls “Senkaku Islands / Diaoyudao / Diaoyutai.” So the Japanese
Government might as well have saved its money by letting the Tokyo Metropolitan
Government buy them and given a Gallic shrug when Governor Ishihara made
landfall. Now, if the Japanese Government registers its usual protests but fails
to take substantive action, the Chinese vessels will become a regular feature
of the Senkaku seascape and Japan’s “effective possession” will vanish, pouf,
just like that.

But what? And at what cost? Just spiffing
up the old lighthouse would invite a massive boycott from the Chinese public
and the Chinese authorities could just let it happen without officially lifting
a finger. True, Chinese joint venture partners will lose money and Chinese employees
will lose their jobs, but the political downside will be strictly limited. The truly
essential stuff, the things that go under the hood, inside factory walls, they wouldn’t
have to be affected. It’s much harder for the Japanese public to respond in
kind. Even if Japanese public became sufficiently incensed, what is it going to
boycott? Lenovo laptops and what else? How do you boycott all the things that
are hidden behind the label, inside the kitchen? Asymmetric warfare, economic
version, that’s what this is.

Perhaps, then, the Noda administration will
keep “surveilling” those Chinese vessels until they go away, like they usually
do. After all, they do need to replenish their fuel and supplies, don’t they?
But what if the Chinese authorities bring in replacements? Entirely plausible. The
Noda administration better have a Plan B, even though it will be a painful one
for Japanese businesses. Otherwise, the second phase of the Noda administration
will be short, brutish, and nasty.

7 comments:

There's a _lot_ of research collaborations, graduate student exchange programs and such things that would be very affected by "administrative delays" in getting continued financing approval. I bet there's a lot in other areas I don't know anything about myself, including things such as export credits, cultural exchanges and so on.

I think there's plenty the government _could_ do to register their displeasure. The question is if, long term, it's the best course of action. It may be better for Japan to make sure as many young Chinese as possible come here to study, make contacts and learn about Japan rather than use it as a club in a schoolyard-level brawl.

I don’t believe that Ishihara thinks in those terms. His disappointment with the government’s response to these incidents go back many years; his resentment of the Chinese government even longer, I suspect. He merely pushed the government into action, which evoked a Chinese backlash that I suspect was beyond what even he had expected.

Jan:

Yes, all those things and more. None of those actions will be initiated from the Japanese side though, at least not in the near future.

On the other hand, there is the issue of territorial control. And there, Japan does have a fair amount of practical military leeway to demonstrate that control.

Those ships are basically acting alone (if they had a full support contingency we'd be talking invasion-type stuff), so Japan could deflect them fairly easily, even without actually firing a shot in anger. And it may have to come to that.

If the rule is not to fire a shot, then it will eventually be down to a show down of tonnage? anyhow, the status quote of Japanese effective control will be changed, as the Chinese will also patrol this part of the sea.

I remember seeing a Chinese research ship moored at a Japanese harbor too many years ago to my liking and noticing something that looked suspiciously like a large machine gun platform completely wrapped in tarpaulin. Since then, I’ve always assumed that Chinese survey vessels are armed for contingencies. Vessels belonging to their fishing authorities have an even greater reason to be prepared, given the ferocity of their fishermen to which the South Korean authorities can also attest. Thus, action is likely to invite reaction (and more vessels) and so on until one side decides to look away. Are the Japanese authorities prepared for that? they probably are not, not yet, but political circumstances may force them in that direction.

Anonymous:

This is not the first time that foreign vessels have entered another sovereign state’s territorial waters over and beyond their right of innocent passage and escaped unscathed, since it is not always in the interests of the sovereign state to respond with lethal force even when the offending vessels refuse to leave on demand. However, if the Chinese vessels become a constant illegal presence in the eyes of Japanese law, then the status quo will have shifted in China’s favor. Will the Japanese authorities allow this to happen? I say that they cannot allow this to happen from the perspective of their political interests. But stranger things have happened.

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About Me

After graduation, Jun Okumura promptly entered what is now the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and stayed in in its ecosystem most of his “adult” life. Along the way, he had pleasant stops in an assortment of Japanese quangos (Japangos?), overseas assignments and government agencies. After thirty years, though, it dawned on him that he had no aptitude whatsoever for administration and/or management. Armed with this epiphany, he went to the authorities and arranged an amicable separation; to come out, as it were. He is completely on his own IYKWIAS, but he and the METI folks remain “good friends.” He currently holds the titles of “visiting researcher” at the Meiji Institute for Global Affairs (no, that MIGA) and counselor at a risk analysis firm that dares not speak its name. This gives him plenty of time to blog or make money on his own. His bank account says that he does too much of the first, and insists that he do more of what he calls “intellectual odd jobs”. He wants to be paid to write fulltime, or better, talk—where the easy money is—but that distinction has largely escaped him. He really should not be referring to himself in the third person; he is not that famous.